


Mum's the Word

by Great_Raven_Parade



Category: Hilda (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28229001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Great_Raven_Parade/pseuds/Great_Raven_Parade
Summary: Alfur finds out ‘Mum’ isn’t Johanna’s real name. Tontu won’t stop teasing him about it.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 127





	Mum's the Word

**Author's Note:**

> Alfur stops calling Johanna 'Mum' sometime during season 2... And Tontu starts calling her 'Mom'. This is just a funny little one-shot to explore why that might be!

"Mum has really outdone herself this time," Alfur said as he took another bite of his crumb of warm, chocolate chip cookie.

Johanna had made them as a treat (and slight bribe) for Hilda and her friends while they were over. She'd much rather them spend rainy days inside. Otherwise, they tended to come up with ideas that sent them sloshing through rain and mud all afternoon, then brought them home soaked and shivering in the evening.

It seemed to have worked. Hilda, David, and Frida all nodded in agreement with Alfur.

Tontu looked up from where he had been swiping a few cookies to bring back to his nest. He tilted his head at Alfur. "Why do you call her 'Mum' all the time?" he asked.

"Tontu," Hilda exclaimed, "He can call her 'Mum' if he wants to. It's cute!"

"It's not just cute. It's adorable," Frida added with a giggle.

Alfur blushed. "Well- That's- Mum _is_ her name isn't it?"

In response, stares and silence.

"Hilda, that's what _you_ always call her!" He paused, "...Isn't it?"

"' _Mom_ ' is short for 'Mother'. Hilda calls her that because she's her _mother_ ," Tontu explained, clear amusement in his voice. "Did you not know that?"

"Well- How do _you_ know her real name? I've known her far longer than you have!" Alfur replied, well on the way to being flustered.

Tontu shrugged and took a bite of a cookie. "She told me."

"I always thought it was an adoption thing. Like, Hilda and her mum _adopted_ Alfur-" David started.

"I wasn't some... Some stray nitten! I came to live in Trolberg with Hilda and… _Her_ mum… Of my own accord! With a passport!" Alfur cried. He swept one arm across as he made his next point, "Adoption is a _completely_ different set of forms!"

"That we'll get to eventually," Hilda added, smiling innocently.

There was a long pause.

Then finally, "Oh my gosh. Alfur, you don't know her real name at all, do you?" Frida asked.

Alfur's face was as red as they had ever seen it.

"Yes, I do! It's… Uhmmmm…" he mumbled something deliberately incomprehensible.

Frida put her hand to her ear and leaned in, grinning. She wasn't letting him off the hook that easily. "I don’t think I heard. Come again?"

A different-sounding mumble.

David laughed, "Even _I_ know it. She uses it when she talks to my parents."

Hilda interrupted, trying to spare Alfur more embarrassment. Though, she was smiling herself. "Oh, come on guys, leave him alone. It's okay, Alfur. Mum's real name is-"

"Don't tell me- I can find it!" Alfur cried, jumping to his feet before Hilda could finish. "The Visibility Contract- The one she signed to see me! She would have had to put her real name on that!" He scrambled up the string of lights he used as a ladder to get to his cuckoo clock house.

"Oh no. An elf forgetting the details of a contract? What is this world coming to?" Tontu asked sarcastically.

Hilda elbowed him hard. "This is _your_ fault," she whispered, but she was holding her other hand over her mouth so Alfur wouldn’t see her grinning when he returned.

"Owww," Tontu whined, "You made me drop my cookies…."

After several moments of rummaging, Alfur burst out of his house with his reading glasses on and a stack of papers in hand. "Jo-Jolema? Jolene? Is that it? Is that anything? It starts with 'J'!"

A quick look around revealed Frida and David barely containing their laughter, Hilda smiling as sympathetically as she could, and Tontu's shoulders shaking as he recovered his sweets from the floor. So, the answer was probably 'no'.

"Oh- Aaand I see why I didn't read this before…" Alfur grumbled, his ears drooping. Note to self, human signatures were _not_ legible. They only did enough paperwork that they valued quickness over the process, it seemed. Or perhaps it was just difficult for them to sign on a line so small.

"Her name is Johanna," Hilda revealed before she burst. "But you can keep calling her 'Mum' if you want to. I don't think she minds it."

"No, no! If her name is Johanna, then that's what I'll call her! From now on," Alfur swore. "Look, I'm making note of this pledge right… Here!" He jabbed his pen on the page for the period, then held it out for everyone to squint at.

The children decided to start up a board game after that, and the conversation mercifully moved on. There was still the occasional 'mum' joke, and everyone found them much funnier than Alfur thought they should. He knew the teasing was all in good fun, but boy, did he hate being the center of it! How had he gone on for so long thinking Johanna's name was actually 'Mum'?

It was near the end of their game that Johanna knocked and poked her head in the room. "David, your parents called. They want you home before dark. Why don't you guys finish up your game and I'll drive everyone home, yeah?"

There was a chorus of 'Aww alright' from the children.

"I'll clean up after everyone leaves, _Mom_ ," Tontu offered. But his nose was pointed towards Alfur, and the elf knew he was grinning under all that fur. He scowled back.

Johanna looked puzzled for a moment, but only said, "Thanks, Tontu. That would be great," then closed the door.

Neither David nor Frida mentioned the incident again, and Hilda wasn't the type to keep the teasing going beyond when it was funny. Tontu, unfortunately, was. For days, whenever Alfur was around, Tontu pointedly called Johanna 'Mom'. Just to mess with him.

"Thanks for breakfast, Mom."

"Here's that kettle, Mom."

"Did you see where the morning paper went, Mom?"

Each time, the nisse curled his tail and shot Alfur a look. Alfur was glad he couldn't see whatever that stupid grin looked like.

Alfur, on the other hand, was careful about scrubbing 'Mum' from his vocabulary. Johanna, Johanna, Johanna! He didn't want to hear the ribbing he'd get if he slipped and called her 'Mum' again while Tontu was within earshot. And with the nisse's command of Nowhere Space, earshot was a hard range to predict. There wasn't much else Alfur could do until Tontu gave up on the joke.

Until one day… Alfur was heading out from Hilda's room on his own to grab a notebook he had left on the living room table. He saw Johanna milling about in the kitchen, with Tontu popping in and out as he always did. Usually, Alfur would politely announce his presence but….

"Oh, Mom, did Hilda say when she was coming home?"

Tontu's tone was casual, and he didn't look in Alfur's direction. In fact, Alfur was certain the nisse didn't even know he was there.

"Hmmm… She did not. But she knows she's supposed to be home in time for dinner," Johanna replied as she washed dishes. Tontu vanished behind a bookshelf, reappeared out from under the cupboard, and sat down on the counter. He began taking the dishes and arranging them on the drying rack for her.

Alfur clicked his pen and started a new log in his journal.

"Aha! You've called Johanna 'Mum' twenty-seven times in the past three days!" Alfur accused, throwing his notebook down in front of the nisse. "And only _five_ of those were when you thought I could hear."

"I've noticed it too," Hilda giggled, "It's cute. Especially since Alfur stopped doing it."

"You've been spying on me?" Tontu asked incredulously, picking up the tiny book between his thumb and forefinger and bringing it close to his nose so that he could read the fine print.

"No, just keeping a log of what I _happen_ to hear," Alfur assured him. He put his not-hands on his hips, smiled, and flicked his ears. Never underestimate the sharp hearing (or the pettiness) of an elf. "I'm sure there are a few times I missed. _Who_ is it that doesn't use Johanna's real name again?"

"Well, I- I knew her name from the beginning! You're the one that didn't!" Tontu argued, tossing the notebook back down.

"Yeah, but now you're the one calling her 'Mum'" Hilda pointed out. "Or… 'mahm'… However _you've_ been pronouncing it."

Alfur grinned up at Tontu, finally avenged.

Tontu just crossed his arms and grumbled, "It turned into a habit, that's all."


End file.
